Two Psychologists Four Beers Episode 121: A New Paradigm for Psychology?
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Jul 7, 2025 Yoel chats with the enigmatic duo behind Slime Mold Time Mold, who challenge traditional psychology by drawing on cybernetics. They propose a new understanding of behavior as driven by 'governors,' linking basic needs to complex emotions and motivations. The conversation reveals how personal experiences shape happiness and the role of discomfort in fulfillment. They explore the intricate dance of hunger signals, mental health, and substance effects on decision-making, all while advocating for innovative models to better grasp human behavior.
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Psychology Needs A Paradigm Shift
- Psychology currently lacks a unifying paradigm and works like alchemy, accumulating facts without a coherent framework.
- Cybernetics, focusing on homeostatic control systems, offers a promising foundation for a new psychological paradigm.
Governors and Negative Feedback Loops
- Governors, or drives, act to reduce error signals between a set point and current state via negative feedback loops.
- This homeostatic principle can explain basic to complex behaviors and motivations.
Emotions As Error Signals
- Emotions are reconceptualized as error signals from control systems (governors) driving behavior to reduce deficits.
- Happiness arises from reducing these error signals, not as an independent emotion.
